The present invention relates to management systems for sample processing apparatuses which process clinical samples such as blood and urine, sample processing apparatuses and management apparatuses, and management methods.
There are known sample processing apparatuses which process samples, such as blood cell counters, blood coagulation measurement apparatuses, immunoassay apparatuses, gene amplification measurement apparatuses, urine qualitative analyzers, urine formed element analyzers, biochemical analyzers, and blood smear preparation apparatuses. When abnormality has occurred in such a sample processing apparatus, there may be a case where a technician in charge of maintenance has to take a countermeasure against the abnormality.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-286663 discloses an automatic analyzer in which when abnormality has occurred in the automatic analyzer, a notification e-mail is generated and the notification e-mail is transmitted to the person in charge. The e-mail transmitted from this automatic analyzer includes information, such as the data under analysis and the analysis condition, as a message or an attached file. The person in charge reads this e-mail by using, for example, a personal computer, a mobile phone, or a personal digital assistant, understands the status of the automatic analyzer and the state of the fault that occurred, and transmits a reply mail to the notification e-mail, the reply mail containing a command for causing the automatic analyzer to perform an operation for taking a countermeasure against the failure. An automatic analyzer 1 performs the operation for taking a countermeasure against the failure, by extracting the command from the received reply mail and performing the command. Examples of operations for taking countermeasures against failures disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-286663 include performing, after analysis is resumed and analysis condition has become stable, analysis from the beginning again, column cleaning, removing bubbles, preprocessing, and the like.